While Dessa and her two companions find refuge in a stable, the owner of the inn is making a deal with the smugglers and the Captain Drake and the royal guard ride in to the yard, causing chases, captures, mishaps, and narrow escapes.
Seeking shelter from a storm, the three fugitives stop at a roadside inn where a greedy innkeeper plots to turn them in to the queen for a reward, and things get worse when the queen's Dragons arrive.